Inline with the 21st Meeting of the Heads of the Association of Southeast Asian Teacher Education Network, AsTEN, the The Philippine Normal University, PNU, in partnership with the Commission on Higher Education, AsTEN and Cebu Normal University, organised the ASEAN Teacher Education Conference 2026 or AsTEC 2026. It was held from the 2nd to 3rd of July at Cebu City, Republic of the Philippines. AsTEC 2026 provides a valuable platform for bridging the gap between policy and implementation, focusing and emphasising on various relevant scopes. This included the Fundamentals of Professional Mobility; Strengthening the ASEAN TEI Ecosystem; Teacher's Professionalism, Resilience and Well-being; Teacher's Quality Assurance and Education Policy; as well as Connecting Theory and Practice in Education.
Present at the launching of AsTEC 2026 was Associate Professor Doctor Abdul Nasir bin Haji Abdul Rani, Ra'es of KUPU SB as Deputy Chairperson of AsTEN; Doctor Kharhan bin Haji Jait, Director of the Centre for Training and Competency Enhancement, KUPU SB, as KUPU SB–AsTEN Liaison Officer, and Awang Mohammad Muslihuddin Syah bin Haji Mustafa, Director of the Centre for International Affairs and Public Relations, KUPU SB. Also present were representative of Universiti Brunei Darussalam, UBD led by Professor Doctor Haji Noor Azam bin Orang Kaya Maha Bijaya Haji Othman, Deputy Vice Chancellor of UBD.
Associate Professor Doctor Shahril bin Ahmad Razimi, Director of the Centre for Graduate Studies, KUPU SB also joined as a presenter for AsTEC 2026.
Doctor Kharhan bin Haji Jait was also given the honour as the forum panelist, discussing on the topic 'Policy Dialogue: University Social Responsibility and Community Extension.'
Attended by regional and international academics, the involvement of KUPU SB teaching staff, especially in such conference, is capable of fostering effective mechanism for research collaboration network. At the same time, it also served as an ideal platform for sharing academic contributions, and promote a culture of academic writing and research at the national and international level to meet the needs of the people, nation and ummah.
